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Conclusion

The principal complaint of most African Americans
against Black conservatives, particularly the
intellectuals featured here, is that they provide
cover for policies that do grievous harm to Black people. But the potential
harm inherent in Black conservatism is a danger
to all Americans.

June Jordan has observed that problems which
first appear in poor African American communities-substandard
schools, AIDS, violent
crime-always eventually appear in middle-income
white communities. At that point they leave the realm of the "culture of
poverty" and become an "American problem."

The United States has never allowed full citizenship rights
for all its citizens. It has never built a social culture devoid
of racism, sexism,
anti-Jewish bigotry,
homophobia, or classism. Our economic system
has never provided full employment at a sustainable wage. As a nation,
we have never committed ourselves to providing as basic human rights a
quality education for each and every child,
universal high-quality health care,
and a decent place to live for all people.

So long as the devastating inequities that characterize American society
persist, and racism continues to exacerbate
these inequities, there is absolutely no way to make meaningful, much
less provable, statements correlating peoples' values with their socioeconomic
status.

By tying poor African Americans' poverty to
race and our supposed slavery-flawed culture,
Black conservatives insult African Americans.
They also divert attention from June Jordan's
observation that Black problems inevitably become problems of the larger
society. At some point, white Americans and middle-income Americans in
general are going to be forced to confront the fundamental problems caused
by this country's severe maldistribution of resources and its intolerance
of diversity. Black conservatives delay that confrontation and in so
doing, they do the entire country a grave disservice.

By uncritically promoting Black conservatives,
liberal and progressive institutions not only undermine their own stated
principles, they exhibit a not-so-subtle form of racism.
As Adolph Reed, Jr. points out: who would listen
if the word "Italian" or "Jew" were
substituted in Black conservatives' characterizations of African Americans?
We should be clear that stereotyping and victim-blaming is not more respectable
because it is done by a member of the group being demeaned.